test-drb April 2002

test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

280 participants
1162 discussions

Micro$oft Biz'droid Lusers (was: OT email response format)

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

From: Christopher Smith <csmith(a)amdocs.com> >People buy peesees for one of four reasons: > >They favor them -- usually because they've never seen anything else. > >Their friend-who-knows-everything-about-computers likes them (yeah...) > >Everybody else is doing it > >They don't know that anything else exists Reason #5: It's a large market and compatability is handy for many reasons. You don't have to like it but if you have a PC even a slow one it can be very handy. It doesn't mean you must pitch over to microsoftism either as there are enough non- M$ tools that seem to work ok on the base winders. As to buying a PC... why? People are giving away P166s and thats enough to do most anything if a decent disk is installed. I figure if I spend more than the price of a new modest sized disk I've overpaid for my PCs. Of course I don't do the games or heavy graphics that want cpu up the wazzoo or other resources. Allison

22 years, 8 months

Open source -- non computer topics (Debian)

by nemesis-lists＠icequake.net

> > What you label "garbage" are the very attributes that many > > Debian members > > hold dear. > Probably exactly why I stay away from "the Debian community," > so to speak. That's fine, and it's your choice, but please remember that since you are "staying away from the Debian community", you are using a system that is the product of others' hard work, and not contributing. If you don't wish to assist the project, IMO you shouldn't be shooting flames and labels around when you're dissatisfied with the outcome. That is just my weak and unfounded opinion; but I just feel that instead of venting your disgust on other unrelated mailing lists, these issues would be better brought up to the Debian project itself. That way, we can be aware of views that diverge from the popular "Debian user"'s view, in order to attempt to provide a better system for all. I mean, yeah, it's great hearing praise and honors from people who love Debian, but we can't improve upon our system when all we hear is what we've done right, and when the grumpy ones :D post their opinions elsewhere so the larger Debian developer base never sees them. Dig? This isn't a flame or a reprimand, it's simply a suggestion. If you disagree, that is fine. I'm just looking out for my operating system. -- Ryan Underwood, <nemesis at icequake.net>, icq=10317253

22 years, 8 months

Micro$oft Biz'droid Lusers (was: OT email response format)

by bob＠copenhagen.cuug.ab.ca

I didn't catch the posting that seems to have started all this, but ignorance never seems to stop anyone *else* from stating an opinion, so here's mine :-) A few years back I spent a little time working for a small company whose primary focus was Unix system software. They did some Windows work, and this was their eventual downfall because they were bought out by McAfee who didn't have a clue what to do with the Unix stuff and weren't interested in finding out. I was the last remaining employee of the original company. For most of the last year of its operation I did pretty much all the system administration, lightweight hardware maintenance, bug fixing, and many of the enhancements to the two Unix products that had been the mainstay of the company. I forget exactly how many machines we had and exactly what they ran, but it was something like: Hardware OS Notes ======== == ===== HP/Apollo 700 HP/UX 9.x HP/Apollo 700 HP/UX 10.01 + 10.10? dual boot DEC Alpha 2000 (?) OSF 1 Motorola Mxxx Motorola Unix v.X forgotten machine Motorola Myyy Motorola Unix v.Y & OS version names SUN Sparc 5 Solaris 2.5.1 SUN SLC Solaris 2.5.1 SUN 3/60 SunOS 4.1.1 IBM RS6000 AIX v.X & v.Y forgotten versions, dual boot Intel SCO Unix Intel Dynix Intel ?nix more memory loss I am missing a couple of machines and maybe one more OS. Before I started with the company I had never even heard of some of these variants. The point of all this is that the same code base built on ALL these things. Sure, we had a "portability" library of our own to make it easier, there was a fair amount of #ifdef stuff, and we had to tinker with GNU autoconf to get the builds smooth, but I could manage ALL of it. We used Emacs and gcc/gdb on all the machines, and a freeware distributed backup package (Amanda) to run complete backups of everything automatically (well, OK, I had to change the tapes manually). Of course, with the network applications that typically come with Unix (telnet, ftp, NFS, X Windows, etc.) I could sit at my own desk and get at every machine conveniently and run a parallel build on all the machines. That would have been completely impossible with the Microsoft (bundled) products available at that time. Now, I've watched people trying to do software development on Windows systems over the years, and I've done a little myself here and there. Every time there is a new service pack or OS release there are wailings and rendings of clothes on all sides. New licenses have to be bought for compilers, new versions of the network backup client have to be purchased, very often a whole new machine has to be bought, the sys admins have to do all sorts of black magic to get the new machines to "play nice" with the old ones on the network, and a whole new set of OS idiosyncracies has to be mastered. I have never observed anything similar in Unix development shops (well, OK, the more organised ones, anyway). Oh, and even *less* upheaval takes place in VMS shops BTW, but VMS has other problems. So: 1. it is perfectly possible to write highly portable software, and once the initial portability setup is done the rest is not particularly hard. 2. there is a great deal of very useful "free" software for Unix out there in net land, much of which you would have to pay big $ for on Windows 3. there is NOT very much "business" software (word processors, spreadsheets, contact management etc.) for Unix because the kind of people who write free software aren't generally very interested in "business" stuff, and the kind of people who write commercial software don't think there is much of a Unix market for it (since they priced themselves out of it a while back). 4. if I were developing software for "back end" applications (servers, networking, etc.) I would certainly do it on Unix in preference to Windows, and in this respect the market mostly agrees with me. By all means use Windows for your office work. That's about all it's good for, and on the whole it does it fairly well. Bob Bramwell Snail: 60 Baker Cr. NW | If I die in war you remember me; ProntoLogical Calgary, AB | If I live in peace you don't. +1 403/861-8827 T2L 1R4, Canada | - Spike Milligan (1919 - 2002)

22 years, 8 months

.I.P. for D.I.Y.

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

From: Bryan Pope <bpope(a)wordstock.com> >And thusly Allison spake: >> >> From: Andy Holt <andyh(a)andyh-rayleigh.freeserve.co.uk> >> >I'll agree - but perhaps the main reason is that modern components are >> >almost impossible for the home builder ... and only the odd few (Tony? :-) >> >> Impossible? How? >> > >Well, we are kind of spoiled here with the "You-Do-It" Electronics store in >Needham. :) Feh! U-blew-it, home of the high priced spread. However they exist and are handy at times. The ham/electornics fleas are handy as mail/email order outfits. Allison

22 years, 8 months

ScanPlus Gray 300 scanner - what type of interface?

by Arno_1983＠gmx.de

Hi all, a former teacher of mine dug this feed-through scanner out of his storage for me. It has a slider pot for brightness and a button labeled "Eject", a power light (green) and an error light (yellow), builtin power supply with on/off switch and IEC inlet. Then there's a female Sub-D-25 connector...unlabeled. How does that connect to the computer? Did it need one of those proprietary interface cards? (We found one in another box, but we're not sure whether it is for this one.) Did already about an hour of googling, but no definitive results...Any hints appreciated. Greetings from Germany Arno Kletzander Arno_1983(a)gmx.de -- GMX - Die Kommunikationsplattform im Internet. http://www.gmx.net

22 years, 8 months

Micro$oft Biz'droid Lusers (was: OT email response format)

by mhstein＠canada.com

>From: Doc <doc(a)mdrconsult.com> > An easy way to spot a Microsoft/Intel patsy is his tendency to present > his own [generally incredibly narrow] viewpoint as immutable fact. > Doc -------- Well, the evidence of this latest waste of time & bandwidth seems to contradict that, since with one possible exception, all the people presenting those truly incredibly narrow viewpoints have been non-MS/Intel users. Despite being called morons, brain-damaged, biz'droid lusers, etc., with intelligence in the gutter, apparently those of us who do manage quite well to do our jobs & accomplish what we need/want using MS OSs & apps on PCs value our time more and respect diversity & other peoples' choices more than to get dragged into this childish & ridiculous name-calling 'discussion'. I for one am quite content to let other people use whatever hardware or software they like, are supplied with, can afford, are comfortable with, whatever, and when there are problems as there inevitably are with any hardware and software, I enjoy the challenge and satisfaction of getting past those problems, not to mention the income it provides. But it's reassuring that there are people out there who'd rather insult their clients/bosses or quit than work with MS/PC stuff; less competition and more opportunities for those of us who actually respect our clients and enjoy helping them and the organizations we work for accomplish their goals. And unlike some people on this list, <snip> Jeez, Dick. I can't believe you dragged me back into this. <snip> we don't all salivate whenever Richard rings his little bell. Hard to remember sometimes that the intelligent majority is silent at times like this (except for me, of course :-) mike

22 years, 8 months

.I.P. for D.I.Y.

by dwightk.elvey＠amd.com

>From: "Ben Franchuk" <bfranchuk(a)jetnet.ab.ca> ---ship--- >>BTW Nuclear fusion on the small scale in a interesting hobby for the >man who has done everything. >http://www.mathematik.uni-marburg.de/~kronjaeg/hv/fusor/construction/index.… I get a kick out of the fact that he made the electrodes in the shape of the old atom symbol they used to use in the advertisements. Does anyone remember the name of the little cartoon character that the GE advertisements had for the atom? Dwight

22 years, 8 months

"Toy" computers (was Re: Micro$oft Biz'droid Lusers)

by SUPRDAVE＠aol.com

In a message dated 4/25/2002 12:21:52 PM Central Daylight Time, dquebbeman(a)acm.org writes: > > The floppy port one was called the Hard Disk 20 (Hard Drive 20?? damn, I > > always screw that up). You are right on the SCSI one (20SC). And there is > > a 2nd product that I am aware of Apple made for the floppy port. An > > external 400k floppy drive. They may have made other external floppies > > for the Mac that use the floppy port as well (800k maybe, but I don't > > think they made a 1.44 external) > > > > There were of course other floppy drives made for floppy ports on the > > IIgs, but I don't know if that is the same functionality, so I don't know > > if those could have been used on the Mac. > > I used to own an external 400k drive, sold it about 10 years ago > along with the old 400k internal drive they let me keep when I > had my Fat mac upgraded to a 512Ke. > > Yes, Apple did make an external drive, ISTR is was called UniDrive > but that was also what they called the single plastic 5.25inch drives > for the Apple //e, according to Sellam... So I think Apple may have > goofed and used the name twice. However, these were not Superdrives, > IIRC, they didn't support 1.44MB, only 800MB. > > When I first saw it, the sounds it made were like a little hard > drive, or so it seemd at the time. > > Third-parties also made external drives; I have one such beast, > can't recall the maker, but I think it has both autoeject in > addition to the quite visible and accessible front-panel eject > button. > Apple called their drives Unidisks, at least for the // family. There was also an apple 3.5 drive, but was only for the mac I think. There was some compatibility notes on what drives went with what. I once had an external Laser 800k drive that worked with either the Laser128 or mac.

22 years, 8 months

"Toy" computers (was Re: Micro$oft Biz'droid Lusers)

by mythtech＠mac.com

>I think there was exactly one product from Apple that plugged into >the floppy port - a 20MB disk that required strange drivers. I >don't recall the part number, but when Apple came out with a 20MB >SCSI disk, they called it the "20SC" or something similar (IIRC) >to distinguish it from the older product. The floppy port one was called the Hard Disk 20 (Hard Drive 20?? damn, I always screw that up). You are right on the SCSI one (20SC). And there is a 2nd product that I am aware of Apple made for the floppy port. An external 400k floppy drive. They may have made other external floppies for the Mac that use the floppy port as well (800k maybe, but I don't think they made a 1.44 external) There were of course other floppy drives made for floppy ports on the IIgs, but I don't know if that is the same functionality, so I don't know if those could have been used on the Mac. -chris <http://www.mythtech.net>

22 years, 8 months

"Toy" computers (was Re: Micro$oft Biz'droid Lusers)

by mythtech＠mac.com

>You couldnt chain a floppy drive off the HD20 though. You sure? I seem to recall that at one point I had two HD20's chained with a 400k floppy at the end (for 3 devices hanging off the floppy port). This was probably on my Mac Plus, as that is the machine that saw the most use of my HD20's. But I could be remembering wrong (I am at least almost 100% positive that I had two HD20's chained at one point) -chris <http://www.mythtech.net>

22 years, 8 months

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test-drb April 2002